LOS ANGELES | Queer advocacy nonprofits GLAAD and HRC sent a joint letter June 27 to the big five social media companies, calling out their failure to stop the spread of anti-LGBTQ+ hate, harassment and disinformation online.
The letter is signed by more than 250 influential celebrities from movies, TV and music as well as activists, advocates and public figures, both LGBTQ+ and allies.
“True allies do not profit from anti-LGBTQ hate,” said the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD in their letter to the social media honchos: Mark Zuckerberg of Meta Platforms, Inc., which owns Facebook and Instagram; Neal Mohan, the CEO of YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google; TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, whose company is owned by China-based ByteDance, Ltd.; as well as new Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino and her boss, Elon Musk.
Among the hundreds of famous names are pop music stars like Sam Smith, Demi Lovato and Ariana Grande, actors Elliot Page, Patrick Stewart and Wilson Cruz, and icons including Laverne Cox, ALOK and Billy Porter.
Click here to read the full letter and see all the signatories.
“There has been a massive systemic failure to prohibit hate, harassment, and malicious anti-LGBTQ disinformation on your platforms and it must be addressed,” the letter states. “The very content you profit from is in violation of your own terms of service, which assert that you do not allow hate speech.
The letter follows the release of GLAAD’s third annual Social Media Safety Index (SMSI), a report on LGBTQ+ user safety, privacy, and expression, released earlier this month. For the second year in a row, all five major social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter – received low and failing scores on GLAAD’s SMSI Platform Scorecard.
According to GLAAD, Twitter is the most dangerous platform for LGBTQ+ people, given that it was the only one to receive scores that declined from last year’s report.
“It’s about time that social media CEOs hear from leaders on their platforms whose content and creativity drive profits and revenue for them,” said GLAAD CEO Sara Kate Ellis in a statement. “You can draw a direct line from online hate and misinformation about trans people to the hundreds of anti-trans bills across the U.S. as well as the rise in violence against LGBTQ people. Until social media platforms take real action, our community continues to be at risk.”
“For far too many LGBTQ+ people, their existence online is marred by rampant, unchecked disinformation and harassment that goes ignored by the very platforms, which directly benefit from their creativity, their content, and their stories,” said Kelley Robinson, president of HRC. “We’re living in a state of emergency, and it’s time that these social media platforms and tech giants take long-overdue action and actually enforce policies that ensure LGBTQ+ people do not face disproportionate harassment and hate simply for being who we are or loving who we love.”
The letter asks the CEOs to address disinformation about gender-affirming care, take action against accounts spreading anti-LGBTQ+ hate in violation of their own policies, crackdown on targeted online attacks against trans influencers and public figures and to tackle hate speech, which includes targeted misgendering and deadnaming.
Targeted misgendering is when someone intentionally refers to a transgender person with the wrong gender. Deadnaming is when someone refers to a transgender person by their former name without their consent. Misgendering can lead to increased levels of psychological stress and depression, according to studies, and targeted misgendering and deadnaming have been identified as a form of hate speech by the Anti-Defamation League, GLAAD and Media Matters.
